Tag Archives: Collagen

Beverly Hills Freaky Frozen Faces

Beverly Hills Freaky Frozen Faces

Why would anyone have a frozen face in Beverly Hills? I mean, come on Janell, it’s hot in Beverly Hills. Are you sure you aren’t confusing your cities? Did you mean to say Brandon, Manitoba, Canada? Brandon, your former stomping grounds, a city where the daytime temperatures can hover at -40 degrees Celsius during the winter; a city whose weather report actually has frost alerts so the inhabitants know exactly how long their exposed skin can be outside before it actually freezes.

I mean, Brandon could have people with literally… Frozen Faces, and that would be Freaky!

HELL NO, I KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT!

In Beverly Hills we have a different sort of Freaky Frozen Faces. The majority of these Freaky Frozen Faces are sadly inflicted upon a few select groups of people: females, particularly ones over 35 years of age; self-absorbed men who want to stay youthful in order to attract women much younger than their years; or gay boys who live in West-Hollywood, where the pressure to stay looking young is fiercely woven into their culture of beauty. And how do these various demographic groups acquire their Freaky Frozen Faces look?

Check out a list of the Freaky Frozen Faces culprits listed below:

Botox… hey, I like a little Botox too. But, that expression ‘there is such a thing as too much’ can really be applicable when people overdo the Botox. When you put so much Botox in that you can’t move any parts of your forehead and you have zero smile lines around your eyes, then you have entered part-one of becoming part of the Freaky Frozen Faces crowd. Half your damn face can’t move! When the bottom half of your face has movement, and the upper half has none, its looks… freaky. Oy vey…

Fillers… hey, a little filler can go a long way. But when you put filler in your cheeks, and then add some to plump up your cheekbones, and add some to your chin, and then under your eyes, and anywhere else you might see a dot of exposed skin, guess what? You may think you look more youthful, because in youth we do have fuller, rounder faces. But if you put in too much of that shit in your face, your skin doesn’t move the same way. Not only do you have a Frozen Face, if you don’t go to a good doctor, you could also have a freaky frozen face. So, unless you want to walk around looking like a scary nightmare, be careful of how much Filler you put into your face, and WHO does your injections. Trust me — this look draws a fine line between ‘Beauty or Beast’!

So now, with your forehead not moving because of the Botox, and your face barely moving from the fillers, some people – and usually it is only women—decide to make their lips protrude in ways that lips were genetically not designed to do. For some reason, Beverly Hills has become the poster child for ‘Collagen/Filler enhanced lips.’ We are talking about lips that swell between 50 to 100 percent of their normal size, or even bigger; FISH LIPS! I am not sure how these massive fake Fish Lips have translated into a youthful look. I see tourists on Rodeo Drive staring at people whose lips appear to swallow up their faces. It looks weird. For some reason, the Fish Lip Phenomenon hasn’t spread across the country in the massive sweep that has taken over Beverly Hills. But in this city, it has become the new norm, a new norm of beauty. I don’t think it makes women look younger, just fucking weird.

Okay, so I guess the moral of this Freaky Frozen Faces story is…

A little goes a long way when it comes to cosmetic fillers and injectables. If you venture into these waters, err on the side of ‘less is more’.

Looking good and feeling good about yourself is important, and I am all about doing things to make you feel good about yourself. But remember, you can’t truly erase aging, so doing it gracefully—even with assistance –means quality NOT quantity.

And all of that being said, if any dermatologist wants to throw this girl some free Botox or Filler, I will gracefully accept as long as I can still move my face, and I still look like me at the end of the day. I have enough problems; I don’t want to add a FREAKY FROZEN FACE to my list of issues!

Kisses y’all! And these kisses are coming at you from my non-cosmetically-enhanced lips.

Beverly Hills Bubble

Beverly Hills Bubble

Is there such a thing as the Beverly Hills Bubble?

When I arrived back in Los Angeles after the Christmas holidays—after spending an extended stay in the Calgary airport on my return due to ‘holiday flight interruptions’—you would think the first thing I would have noticed when I finally landed at LAX were the warm winter winds and the palm trees gently swaying amid a sunshiny azure blue sky: a quintessential California winter day.

Well, you would be wrong.

You see, when I departed LAX the first leg of my WestJet ‘two-day-trek’ to the great white north was delayed by several hours. Normally, I would be irritated and stressed about the delay. But as I took a good look around, I noticed that Terminal 2 at LAX had been completely renovated since my trip the year prior. Last year, there was one kiosk in the whole terminal where you could only buy, basically… prison food. So, when I realized that several new boutiques, restaurants and bars were now at my disposal, I landed at Barney’s Beanery and indulged in some tacos and wine, chatting with other stranded passengers until my WestJet flight actually departed for Calgary. I felt grateful that the spiffy newly-renovated terminal had been a comfy distraction from my delayed flight.

Then, after spending 12 days surrounded by the beauty of what is a Manitoba winter, with the crisp cold air and the clean white snow making the merriment of the season come alive before your eyes— a picturesque Christmas postcard of beauty—I was once again sidelined in an airport on my return, the new International Terminal in Calgary to be precise.

Not only is the Calgary International terminal large, boasting of many restaurants, bars and tiny little shops…but it’s also clean. Clean as a whistle. Pristine! You could actually eat off of the floor; seriously! So when I finally landed back at LAX, back in Terminal 2 – the newly renovated terminal, one which seemed like a revamped miracle only two weeks prior—all I noticed when I disembarked the plane was filth: garbage strewn about, mobs of people everywhere, more garbage, and miserable unhappy people breathing in an air that would not be described as odorless. Compared to the clean airports of Canada, Terminal 2 looked like a dump; an old dump, one that needed a renovation. It likely would have not struck me as odd, had I not been marveling at its beauty and improvements only two weeks prior.

As I got in my Uber to head to my home, I started to really take in the scenery around me: the massive freeways, the run down stores, the dilapidated buildings, the un-manicured lawns, the worn out street signs, not to fail to mention the homeless people hanging out in the middle of the busy streets looking for handouts or trying to sell you oranges. Compared to the ‘Sunny Manitoba’ snow-kissed countryside, I felt like I was heading into a poverty stricken war zone.

As we continued our drive down the increasingly noticeably dilapidated La Cienega Boulevard, with the majority of business having bars on their windows, I remember saying to my Uber driver, ‘God, LA is an ugly city. It’s a dirty, ugly city.’ Pondering those thoughts, I felt the aching of my heart, sad having left my mom standing in tears at the little Brandon airport as she hugged me good-bye at four a.m. earlier that morning. I began to wonder what the hell I was doing living so far from my family, in this ‘dirty-cesspool-of-a city’, one I proudly defended for years as ‘my city’.

Then, just as the Uber car crossed over Olympic and Wilshire, suddenly the topography changed as dramatically as if a fairy had used her magic wand to cast a beauty spell on everything that fell within its magical range: The grass was cut, the houses were pretty, the sidewalks were clean, the cars were nice, the bars were gone from the restaurant windows. Ahh… I was home! I was back in Beverly Hills! HOME AT LAST!

Then later, after some soul searching and once the homesick aching finally dissipated, I realized that living, working, and playing in my comfy 3 mile radius had made me rather oblivious to life outside of my Beverly Hills Bubble. I basically existed in a beautiful Beverly Hills bubble of life, kind of like living in Stephen King’s Under the Dome, except this was a dome that no one wanted to escape.

I guess Los Angeles really is a city of neighborhoods, and each one has its own type of beauty and qualities which draw people to live there: Santa Monica – beach lovers, West Hollywood – lifestyle acceptance; Los Feliz- artsy fartsy folks (and the scary Scientology center); Venice – hippy dippy granola peeps … well, you get the picture. When I moved to LA I had one friend, and she lived in Beverly Hills, in the heart of the Beverly Hills Bubble. And, as I lived with her for a while, I began to feel comfortable in my new neighborhood to the point that I have never left it. So… here I am and here I be, so Beverly Hills Bubble – you are stuck with me.

Being stuck in the Beverly Hills Bubble isn’t a bad thing—it’s definitely more of an expensive thing— but the people who live in the Beverly Hills Bubble, eventually acclimate to this so-called life. So how do you know when you have become acclimated to life inside the Beverly Hills Bubble?

You know you are part of the Beverly Hills Bubble when…

Going to an event or dinner West of the 405 or East of La Brea feels so far, it makes you wonder if you should pack an overnight bag.

When you see a 65-year old man with a 20 something girl, you automatically assume they are dating.

Buying a $1600 Missoni dress on a 75% off sale doesn’t mean you spent 400 dollars, it means you saved $1200! (My personal favorite of this list!)

A studio apartment without a parking stall at $2400 a month seems like a deal, after all you are in walking distance to Fred’s at Barneys.

Children need to take tests to get into pre-school, and as a parent you stress that your child will act like a normal three year old and fuck it up.

Beverly Hills has 2 hour free parking garages, so you make sure you don’t go over two hours free when you are buying your $300 dollar pair of blue jeans. Because having to pay a dollar for parking, would really piss you off.